Kämpya: Difference between revisions

Kämpya is spoken is my far-future Antarctican conworld, where runaway global warming has melted the icecaps and made the continent habitable (while rendering most of the rest of the world uninhabitable).

It then diverged into a number of widely divergent dialects (technology regressed, and groups of speakers were cut off from one another), followed by another period of koineisation when enough technology was re-invented for speakers of different dialects to be able to contact one other again. This koine was called Kämpya, and spread to many other parts of the continent, aided by the growth of a religion called Laikyâr (although not all Kämpya speakers follow the Laikyâr religion, and not all Laikyâr believers speak Kämpya). Indeed there is a special register of the language that is only used in religious contexts. There are also a number of regional dialects. However, this page describes what could be termed the "standard" dialect.

In addition to this, there is also a tone contrast, but this is only used for grammatical purposes (e.g. to change between different parts of speech, or to mark alienable / inalienable possession), never for lexical purposes. For example, from the noun /áˈlâṵn/ - "that which is alone", which has High Tone on the first syllable and Falling Tone on the second (with harsh voice), we can derive the non-restrictive adjective /àˈláṵn/ - "by itself / solitary", which has Low Tone on the first syllable and High Tone on the second (with harsh voice).

In colloquial speech, stops in the codas of unstressed syllables are debuccalised to glottal stops e.g. the city named /ˈkʰóʔnàt/ is often pronounced [ˈkʰóʔnàʔ], /ˈpʰḛ̂jòd/ - "fjord" is pronounced [ˈpʰḛ̂ːjòʔ].

===Stress and Phonation===

If /h/ occurs after vowels with harsh phonation, it is pronounced as a voiced epiglottal fricative [ʢ] e.g. /zwéˈmâ̰h/ - "to report", is pronounced [zwéˈmâ̰ʢ].

| alone || áˈlâṵn || áˈlàṵn || àˈláṵn

|-

|-

| question || à̤h || à̤h || ǎ̤h

|-

|}

===Sound Correspondences with English===

====Consonants====

/s/ acquired phonemic aspiration in similar situations to the above e.g. /sʰḛ̂n/ - "heaven" (from English "ascend") vs. /èˈsóʔt/ - "exotic.DESC" (the /k/ that used to precede the /s/ was lost, but not before blocking that aspiration that would otherwise have occurred on an /s/ in a stressed syllable).

/ʍ/ re-emerged in English via spelling pronunciations, becoming Kämpya /hw/ (pronounced as [ʍ]) e.g. /ˈhwâ̰jù/ - "whale".

English /v/ became /bw/ before a vowel e.g. /ˈbwḛ̂lì/ - "valley"

# The vowel in DRESS and MERRY normally became /e/ e.g. /ˈḛ̂nèm/ - "enemy". However, before /l/ it became /ei/ e.g. /béiʔ/ - "belt".

# The vowel in SQUARE and MARY became /e/ in unstressed syllables, and /eː/ in stressed syllables (causing lenition of the following consonant). Then these both merged into /e/ e.g. /kʰḛ̂/ - "hospital patient" (from English "care")

# The vowel is FOOT became /u/ e.g. /pʰúʔ/ - "foot".

# The vowel in FACE normally became /ai/ e.g. /nâḭm/ - "name". However, before /l/ it became /aju/ e.g. /ˈhwâ̰jù/ - "whale".

# The vowel in CHOICE became /ou/ e.g. /tʰjòi̤/ - "choice", except before /l/ when it became /oju/ e.g. /ˈbô̰jù/ - "hot spring" (from English "boil").

# The vowel in GOAT usually became /au/ e.g. /n̥âṵ/ - "snow". However, in a stressed syllable before /l/ it became /ou/ e.g. /kʰôṵlà/ - "(Coca-)Cola".

|}

===Genitive / Ergative Pronouns===

====With Postpositional Phrases====

valley=from depart enemy

or

enemy valley=from depart

valley=from 2PS depart

The dog bit the lizard.

However, the difference is that Kämpya has ergative syntax. Whatever argument of the verb is in the absolutive case is the syntactic pivot [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syntactic_pivot]. In a normal transitive sentence, this is the object of the verb. But, by using the antipassive voice, the subject of the transitive verb becomes the syntactic pivot. If we combine the two sentences above with the verb /áˈwâḭ/ - "to flee", the meaning becomes very different:

The dog bit the lizard and (the dog) ran away.

The dog bit the lizard and the lizard ran away.

===Ditransitive Sentences===

guardian=ERG bone=SEC give dog

or

dog guardian=ERG INDEF=bone=SEC give

The ergative argument can be topicalised in the same way e.g.

guardian INDEF=bone=SEC give dog

It is also perfectly possible to put a ditransitive sentence in the antipassive voice e.g.

The guardian gave the bone to the dog.

===With Postpositional Phrases===

Postpositional phrases usually come after the theme (i.e. whatever takes the secundative case) e.g.

guardian=ERG bone=SEC forest=LOC give dog

=====Clitics beginning with /t/ and /p/=====

guardian grass=SEC give dog

Literally "the guardian gave the snare to the dog", but "give a snare" could also be translated as "use a snare to catch".

The /k/ here lenits to /h/ and triggers deaspiration in exactly the same way as /g/. However, if the monophthong had harsh voice, it changes to be glottalised e.g. from /n̥ḛ̀/ - "snare", if we add the locative clitic /-ka/, the result is /nèʔ=há/ - "at the snare".

====With Pronouns====

bone=SEC forest=LOC 2PS.ERG give dog

2PS.ERG bone=SEC forest=LOC give dog

=====With Postpositions=====

===Applicative Voice===

/ˈdô̰k=zù pʰò̤wé=ká ˈbíʔ ˈlḭ̂zàd/

we can apply an applicative transformation to get:

In the forest, the dog bit the lizard.

As another example, the sentence

enemy valley=from depart

becomes the following:

From the valley, the enemy departed.

Likewise, in ditransitive sentences, the theme (i.e. whatever is given by the donor to the recipient) can also be topicalised by the same process e.g.

dog guardian=ERG INDEF=bone=SEC give

becomes

The bone was given to the dog by the guardian.

we get

In the forest, the dog bit you.

This is clearly a cliticisation process, since adverbs can come before the particle but after the verb e.g.

In the forest, the dog bit the lizard.

or

sun yellow.DESC

===Articles===

INDEF=dog

INDEF=enemy

Kämpya nouns are not inflected for singular or plural, but when they take the indefinite article, they are only ever singular, so the above examples could never mean "some dogs" or "some enemies".

Compare:

INDEF=dog

with

one dog

However, (restrictive) adjectives can intervene between the indefinite article and the noun e.g.

INDEF=yellow.REST dog

a yellow dog

===Demonstratives===

Kämpya distinguishes alienable and inalienable possession. In both cases, possessors are marked with the cliticised case marker /ja/, and come before the noun they possess. But inalienable possessors are in Tone Class 2 e.g.

dog=GEN.INALIENABLE bone

While alienable possessors are in Tone Class 1 e.g.

dog=GEN.ALIENABLE bone

dog=GEN.ALIENABLE this bone

This bone of the dog's (literally "the dog's this bone").

===Relative Clauses===

The forest, which the lizard bit it in, is small.

==Mood/Evidentiality==

I want you to be bitten by the '''small''' dog (and not a big one).

===Conditional Mood===

===Hypothetical Mood===

2PS.INTR=HYP=depart

2PS.INTR=HYP=depart COND=1PS.EXCL=alone

===Direct Evidential===

===Reportative Evidential===

dog REP=alone

alone REP=dog

===Inferential Evidential===

/dô̰k gés=áˈlâṵn/

===Assumptive Mood===

sun ASS=rise

===Interrogative Mood===

You weren't abandoned by the dog.

==Responses to Polar Questions==

ASS

CHALLENGE.PRESUPPOSITION

or

Hkonat=from Q.INTR=depart

Who / What did the guardian give to the dog?

When English would use a word such as "where" or "when", Kämpya instead uses /kḛ̀/ (the accusative emphatic interrogative pronoun) with a postposition e.g.

enemy Q.ACC=from depart

or

Whose dog bit the lizard? (literally "Who has the dog that bit the lizard?")

===Other Interrogatives that modify noun phrases===

However, bá- can only attach to a noun in the absolutive case. To ask about the subject of a transitive verb, it is necessary to antipassivise the verb. e.g.

ANTIP=bite Q.INTR=dog lizard=DAT

To ask about the object of a postposition, an applicative construction is needed e.g.

Which forest did the lizard bite the dog in?

For example, from the sentence:

mother=ERG REP=know everyone

We can replace the object with a pronoun to get

mother 1PS.INCL.ACC=REP=know

If there is a subordinate clause, then the accusative pronoun is replaced with /nó/ e.g.

mother SBRD.ACC=REP=know dog=ERG bite lizard

If the superordinate clause's absolutive argument is also the topic of the subordinate clause, then it does not need to be mentioned twice e.g.  

mother SBRD.ACC=REP=know dog=ERG bite

And another example using a postposition:

mother=ERG SBRD.ACC.EMP=SEC speak child dog=ERG bite lizard

And as before, the absolutive argument of the superordinate clause can be the topic of the subordinate clause e.g.

mother=ERG SBRD.ACC.EMP=SEC speak child INDEF=bone=SEC NEC=give dog

The mother told the child that she (the mother) must give the dog a bone.

The mother told the child that she (the mother) gave the dog a bone (the speaker saw the act of giving).

So if the above 2 sentences take ðjíʔ, then they become:

mother=ERG SBRD.ACC.EMP=SEC speak child 3PS.OBV.ERG INDEF=bone=SEC give dog

The mother told the child that he / she (someone other than the mother, either the child or someone else) gave the dog a bone.

===Evidentials and Reported Speech===

==Comparative Constructions==

dog.TOP lizard=above fast

Dogs are faster than lizards (literally "Dogs are fast above lizards").